the
limbs.

INSOMNIA DURING PREGNANCY.--Insomnia or sleeplessness is sometimes a
vexatious complication during pregnancy. It seldom if ever becomes of
sufficient importance or seriousness to interfere with the pregnancy or the
health of the patient. Nevertheless, a period of sleeplessness lasting for
two or three weeks is not a pleasant experience to a pregnant woman. It is
most often met with during the latter half of pregnancy.

There can be no question that every case of insomnia has definite cause,
and can be relieved if we can find the cause. The only way to find it [87]
is to systematically take up the consideration of each case, and this is
best done by the physician. He must have patience and tact; you must answer
each question truthfully and fully. Your diet, personal conduct, exercise,
condition of bowels, mental environment, domestic atmosphere, everything,
in fact, which has any relation to you or your nerves, must be inspected
with a magnifying glass. Some little circumstance, easily overlooked, of
seemingly no importance, may be the cause of the trouble. You may need more
outdoor exercise, or you may need less outdoor exercise. You may need more
diversion, more variety, or you may need less. You may need a sincere,
honest, tactful, patient confidant and friend, or you may need to be saved
from your friends. You may be exhausting your vitality and fraying your
nerves by social exigencies,--those empty occupations which fill the lives
of so many fussy, loquacious females,--echoless, wasted, babbling moments,
of supreme important to the social bubbles who ceaselessly chase them but
of no more interest to humanity than the wasted evening zephyrs that play
tag with the sand eddies on the surface of the dead and silent desert. You
may have wandered from the narrow limitations of the diet allowable in
pregnancy, or you may be the victim of an objectionably sincere relation
who pesters you with solicitous inquiries of a needless character. Whatever
it is, rectify it. A good plan to follow on general principles is to take a
brisk evening walk with your husband just before bedtime, and at least two
hours after the evening meal. Follow this with a sitz bath as soon as you
return from the walk.

A sitz bath is a bath taken in the sitting position with the water reaching
to the waist line. It should last about fifteen minutes and the water
should be comfortably hot. It is sometimes found that this form of bath
crea